The humble handspun khadi-one of the world's oldest fabrics-is easily the most enduring of cultural and political symbols in the Indian subcontinent.

Just as globalisation, nuclear proliferation and the march of technology were threatening to make both Mahatma Gandhi and his beloved khadi irrelevant, Martand Singh Associates and Swiss magnate Andreas Reinhart of the Volkart Foundation joined hands to launch an innovative project to re-invent this "fabric of freedom". So when Mapu (as Singh is called by friends) met Bapu (or at least his favourite cloth), with some help from Reinhart, the humble khadi got a new chance to make it in the marketplace.

An exhibition recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Delhi on January 30 not only showcases the social relevance, techniques of production and a wide range of khadi cloth, but also displays contemporary outfits created by leading fashion designers to attract fresh market segments. The organisers feel that the only way to give khadi a genuine lease of life is to get the bulk of the fashionable upper classes to accept it wholeheartedly as a trendy sartorial statement.

Slated to tour four Indian cities-Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata-besides the capital Delhi, the exhibition displays 108 types of textile yardage and same variety in types of saris. To add spice, seven top Indian designers-Ritu Kumar, Abraham and Thakore, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Asha Sarabhai, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Raghavendra Rathore and Manish Arora-have contributed creatively with three to six exclusively designed khadi garments each. Equally interesting is the in-depth research on the subject by textile technologist Rahul Jain and writer-researcher Rta Kapur Chisti, which has yielded four lucid explanatory publications.

Above all, this project is a labour of love and sincere personal inquiry. When asked why he had written the Ramacharitmanas, the saint-poet Tulsidas had replied, "Swantah sukhaya" (For the joy of the self). In a similar vein, both Reinhart (who sponsored the project) and textile expert Singh, who curated and conducted the project, call this project a voyage in self-realisation.

For a century and a half, the Swiss company Volkart Brothers made vast profits by taking cheap raw cotton from India and trading in machine made cotton clothing (apart from machinery and agro-products) in the markets of India and Europe. Reinhart inherited the company in 1985 and the company which once made money by exploiting an underdeveloped British colony's cheap raw materials was given a new direction. The existing conventional business was dismantled and new ventures were set up to balance "making money and taking responsibility". A Buddhist in spirit, he now manages an international network of institutions and companies devoted essentially to the concepts of non-violence and environmental sustainability.

TRUTH IS BLACK AND WHITE: Designer David Abraham and project mastermind Martand Singh (below)

So to mark the sesquicentennial celebrations of Volkart Brothers, Reinhart was looking for a project that would address both the company's past and its future concerns. At the same time Singh was asked if there was any single area of Indian textiles that he wished to focus on. "There were two areas-khadi and carpets-of which I knew precious little," says Singh, adding, "Since an exhibition on Indian carpets had already been done at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, khadi was the natural area to focus on." Mutual friends put Singh and Reinhart together and the results are, so to speak, on display.

But what of khadi? Of the million odd families who eke out a below-subsistence wage by spinning and weaving the poor man's cloth? Textile expert Jain believes, "For khadi to survive, the lot of its producer has to be bettered." And for that, top-end khadi has to be made attractive to the middle and upper class who have so far used it under moral and political pressure from the Mahatma during the freedom movement. After Independence the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) did a sterling job by keeping it alive. But that has been through huge subsidies provided by the government. As a market operation, despite its network of shops in every small town and big city, it has been a disaster with over Rs 1.25 crore worth of inventory gathering dust in godowns.

Clearly khadi needs new messiahs. Reinhart and Singh have taken an initiative. Hopefully they will not abandon it. The idea of sustainability needs to be sustained too.